Kirjoittaja Antti Haase/Kehityspäällikkö Ktamk, dokumenttielokuvaohjaaja

 One thousand people living in Finland tell a story that is in their hearts and minds, right now. Stories are about 1-9 minutes long and are based on something that happened to the storyteller today, last month or any time during his / her life.

 

Stories are not based on a certain theme or content goal of the filmmakers. On the contrary: the idea is to give the opportunity to anybody to tell a story that he/she is ready to share, not what a film maker wants to use people for in a film.

 

This simple and democratic approach, "everybody has a story to tell", creates stories, that "are better than almost any screenplay I have read ", as it was expressed by one of the leading actors of Finland, the TV-host for the stories,  Mr Martti Suosalo.

 

One Thousand Stories -project uses different ways of collecting "kernel stories" and develops them into documentaries in different forms and into different art forms for distribution on different platforms. The project started in 2008 more as an experiment, but already some 300 stories have been produced by a growing community of contributors. Part of these stories have been produced through a normal production process with proposals, selection process etc. Majority of the stories have been done using StoryTent or StoryTruck -method, where a welcoming setting in a moving studio with blue screen background has offered anyone the possibility to come and tell their stories. In Finnish Lapland stories are collected based on chance encounters with people in their own work and home environments, using only sound recordings and photographs.

 

Already nearly 50 stories have been placed on the project's net platform - demo -(www2.tokem.fi/lonnrot/english), which aims to combine the best elements of recent successful documentary net platforms (eg. ARTE's Gaza-Sderot and David Lynch's The Interview Project in the US). A very crucial element here is, that the stories on the net platformare "public domain", the interactive element will be build in connection to the stories and the possibility to upload people´s own stories will be established also.

 

Already now the fundamental goal: to transform the kernel stories into different forms has been achieved: A 16 part television series (StoryTent) is in the production and will be broadcast at prime time in YLE-TV 2 in autumn 2009. A 90 min documentary film based on kernel stories is also in the production. Several stories will be broadcast on YLE's radio channels, possibly simultaneously with television.

 

And in the connection to the aim to modify kernel stories in to different art forms already one example exists. One of the "kernel stories", Elli, has been told not only in a documentary film, but also as an interactive video installation, photo exhibition and a live dance performance, combining together to form a new non-linear "cross art documentary" -format.  Elli has already been exhibited at the Sunny Side of Doc and has been invited to Sheffield Documentary Film Festival.

 

One Thousand Stories core partners are: YLE-TV2  Documentaries, AVEK, Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences and Finnish film production companies Videokuu Ltd, October Ltd and Studio Blue Ltd.

One Thousand Stories and Open Source Cinema

 

One Thousand Stories is inherently an Open Source -process. The stories are collected, produced and distributed with Open Source principles of free collaboration and participation. The same goes for the project itself. For example, the net platform has been developed at the Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences by a small group of documentary filmmakers and web-designers, based on the feedback of other core partners on demo versions.

 

Some of the main ideas and questions we would like to work on with Open Source Cinema principles (http://www.opensourcecinema.org/) are the following. How could we create audience participation online and in live situations for One Thousand Stories? More precisely, what are the different ways people could participate by submitting their own stories and by remixing other people's stories on the net platform? What kind of remixing is interesting for the audience and what technology there is already available.

 

Online participation is important, but the basis of One Thousand Stories is in great content coming out of live human contact, people sharing stories with each other. In addition to storytelling, how could people in live situations be encaged into the project and it's promotion? For distribution and financing opportunities our most important task is to define what already existing communities would benefit the most from our one thousand stories and their re-use in new forms and contexts.

 

Based on these ideas, experiences and questions, One Thousand Stories core team (consisting some 20 individuals at the current stage) is looking for partners to develop the project further, to find new ways to modify and transfer different kernel stories for different platforms and also to create an international co-operation for a global, cross-media, multi-platform project, with internet as the first platform. This aim has already raised interest in our international partners this summer in La Rochelle (Sunny Side of the Doc) and will be explored further at scheduled meetings in Sheffield and IDFA during this autumn. For this international project finding a common theme for the content will be crucial.

 

One Thousand Stories

 

www2.tokem.fi/lonnrot/english